Going Dual!

I’ve been trying over the last five years to focus home improvements on saving energy and especially water after the drought a few years back.

One I did recently should win the favor of Council Member Diane Catotti, already a friend and someone I admire and appreciate.  I already had low flow toilets but working with Ben Franklin Plumbing here in Durham, I had them retrofitted to be “dual-flush.”

This means the handle swings up for a #1 flush and uses half the water that a down flush des for #2.  Works just as promised.

It will take a while to recoup the cost.  As it has with better high efficiency faucets, shower heads, rain harvesting, drip irrigation and other measures like an on-demand water heater, front loading, high efficiency washer and dual fuel HVAC etc.

I’m just hoping codes are being updated to require these innovations in all new construction.

But I’m listening on talk radio right now to people who insist it is their right to go around without health insurance (or auto insurance I assume) and thus the public (you and me) should pick up the costs when they or their family members have accidents or disease.

I wouldn’t even want to approach such people on their right to use all of the water they want, pollute the air when they want and have the rest of us pick up the tab.

You can tell we’re a pretty “spoiled” society when some of us argue their right to do things that take the rights of the rest of us away…when we have to bail them out.  That’s pretty much the value of government.  Doing things or requiring things for the good of the whole that aren’t practical for the private sector or volunteers alone.

But the same guy asserting his right not to have health insurance would probably argue that we could do without the road system or create and maintain it with volunteers and donations.